Nishi and Nijera Shikhi

- Nijera Shikhi (BGD) is an NGO operating in Bangladesh - Nishi refers to our work to seed people's literacy movements - Nijera Shikhi (UK) is a UK charity that supports both Nishi and Nijera Shikhi (BGD) Nijera Shikhi was founded in Bangladesh by John Hastings as a people's movement to eradicate illiteracy from Bangladesh. People's movements are inherently fragile and so following John's untimely death and changes in the development context and literacy policy in Bangladesh Nijera Shikhi evolved into an NGO operating in a range of much needed development activities (see Brief History).

Nijera Shikhi (BGD) now operates as an effective NGO with a complement of paid staff who implement its programmes. As such it would now be very difficult for it to foster an embryonic people's movement. There would also be considerable risks to an emerging movement of trying to operate within an organisation that does not completely espouse its essence and values. Therefore, within Bangladesh a new operating partner is being established.

Nijera Shikhi (UK) was founded by family and close friends of John Hastings to help fulfil his vision and support his legacy. It has done this by raising funds for Nijera Shikhi (BGD). In order to distinguish between our existing work and our new work of re-establishing a people's literacy movement we refer to our adult literacy work as “Nishi”.

We see all of this as a part of John's rich legacy with Nijera Shikhi (BGD) and Nishi being two distinct sides of the same coin.